Buying a restaurant may have been Leanne Battersby’s stab at respectability, but when the going gets tough, she’s quick to revert to type.

And the former hooker knows every trick in the book from her past as a junkie, grave robber and blackmailer to get somebody to do the dirty work when she wants rid of the Italian.

Seducing smitten chef Paul with a false promise of a feast of sexual delights is easily done, and she’s quick to turn his burning desire into an inferno when he torches Valandro’s on Monday to claim the insurance money.

So while Leanne plays hunt the betting slip under bookie Dan’s duvet, Paul is indulging in a bit of arson…

‘Don’t worry about him,’ Dan reassures Lee. ‘If he was one of his knives, he couldn’t cut butter.’

Indeed, Paul isn’t sharp enough to realise he has been manipulated into committing a criminal act. In the aftermath of his small kitchen fire spreading through the building and turning it to toast, Paul can’t help but be a little smug when he and Leanne are called to the scene. ‘I hope,’ he smirks, ‘you like your restaurant well done.’

A bit like himself, then. For he soon finds out that Lee and Dan are in cahoots.

‘You deliberately led me on,’ he complains. ‘You were flirtin’ like a nun in hell… I wanted you. An’ not just for a quickie after hours, but for the rest of my life. I’ve fallen completely, stupidly, head-over-heels in love with you.’